Somewhere, former prime minister Paul Martin must have smiled. A smile for what might have been for him, a smile for what became of his idea, mocked in its time, now considered conventional wisdom.
On the weekend, the leaders of 20 countries gathered at the behest of U.S. President George Bush. It was, de facto, a kind of Group of 20, convened to discuss the world economic crisis whose epicentre is the U.S. under Mr. Bush's catastrophic leadership.
Many years ago, as Canada's finance minister, Mr. Martin began to trumpet the need for a G20, or L20 (L for leadership, he called it). The old G7 that became the G8 with the admission of Russia had outworn its usefulness, he argued. Something larger was needed to augment the old club by incorporating newer economic powers and some developing countries into international economic meetings.
Mr. Martin pressed the point while prime minister, to little avail. He got academics at the University of Victoria and the Centre for International Governance Innovation at Waterloo to help him promote the idea. But it received a chilly reception in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
The European countries liked the G7/8 because they, with Italy and the European Union representative, dominated the organization, and they did not want their influence diluted. With Old World scorn, they politely but firmly squelched the idea. The Americans, cock of the walk, dismissed the idea, too. The Japanese, transfixed as always by China, did not want the Chinese included - just as China blocks any Japanese attempt to secure permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council.
Mr. Martin's idea, of course, found favour outside the G8 and, subsequently, began to gain grudging favour inside the club. Some additional countries were invited to G8 summits, like guests for dessert. They got to participate in some, but not all, of the meetings.
In Washington on the weekend, the G8 became the G20 in fact, and the world's political infrastructure for discussing, and perhaps some day reforming, international economic architecture changed forever. The little club has been broken open, just as Mr. Martin suggested in the late 1990s when he was finance minister.
Where this leaves Canada, with its relative economic influence waning and its political influence shrivelling, remains an open question.
At the table in Washington were the up-and-coming heavyweights: Brazil, China and India, plus others such as Turkey, Spain and Indonesia. With China, the Harper government has made relations cool; with Brazil, relations are distant, despite this week's trip there by International Trade Minister Stockwell Day. With India, the government's intentions are good, the follow-up minimal. With Turkey, the Harper government has done nothing but insult the country by meddling in the First World War Armenian issue, which is no business of Canada's.
These curious decisions of neglect and obduracy are among the results of an inward-looking political culture that substitutes moral superiority for spending more on diplomacy abroad, and that elects a government that boasts about putting Canada "on the map" without any evidence to support the boast, except in Afghanistan, from which Canada has signalled its departure. Some day, this inwardness and political neglect will catch up to Canada. For the moment, however, we retain a seat at tables such as the one in Washington.
It is Canada's fate at such tables to occasionally suggest ideas that others take up, such as the very notion of a G20 or at least an enlarged G7/8. Good ideas, in other words, can be a substitute for economic or political heft. At least that was Canada's entree in the past - that and not being another European country.
It will be some time yet before this new international creature takes rooted life, and longer still before any new international economic architecture is arranged.
All came to Washington, invited/summoned by the U.S. President. The countries that attended told the world's new story, however - the world's economic balance is shifting away from the United States.
On the eve of the summit, Mr. Bush gave a rousing defence of Wall Street, featuring the kind of intellectual denial and cognitive dissidence that marked his presidency. No one, at home or abroad, paid any attention, with reason.